The next Primus Avenger Program.

[Jazzidemus]

Ok, so running with the current riff, President Johnson Green lit the Prime Avenger Initiative. Handing over notes that were collected during & after WWII perhaps containing some works by Herr Doktor Zierstointen. So after many years of deciphering the recovered notes & experiments Dr Merill  presented Cyberline, not telling anyone that it was heavily based on Dr. D's work.

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, Tjack said:

 

 

What about the real world “colored” prisoners during the ‘30’s who were intentionally infected with syphilis and not treated to see what would happen.  Or Henrietta Lacks, who’s blood samples were harvested, have improved medicine for generations and only recently has her contribution been acknowledged but still never adequately paid for.

     This shit happens all the time.

 

Does that fact excuse other such acts? Is something not horribly immoral because something else is arguably even more horribly immoral? And if such an act becomes public, should it not be condemned, and its perpetrators held accountable for their actions?

[Wakshaani]

1 hour ago, Jazzidemus said:

Ok, so running with the current riff, President Johnson Green lit the Prime Avenger Initiative. Handing over notes that were collected during & after WWII perhaps containing some works by Herr Doktor Zierstointen. So after many years of deciphering the recovered notes & experiments Dr Merill  presented Cyberline, not telling anyone that it was heavily based on Dr. D's work.

May go back further than Johnson, but, yeah, tossing Dr D into the mix can work if you want to take some hate off of Kaufman himself. The bigger thing was "How big of a scandal is it when the public finds out how CYberline was made?" and, from there, hat happens to Primus. I was assuming the Cyberline production would end which would rock the entire org from grunt to Gold, but I don't know if it would fold or if the bigger story would be, "We need Primus, we just can't let THAT continue. So, purge. Purge ALL THE THINGS, then rebuild a more transparent organization that America can trust."

And from there, what that group would look like. I don't know if going with more Iron Guard would be a stopgap or the overall goal … Turtle Armor's been a thing for a while, after all, and building more tech to hand out is easy while brewing up a new genebroth is gonna be. like, ALL THE MONEY.

And then my brain starts to think about recruiting mutants into the mix and watching Kaufman's racist buddies flip out and resign. Which would then set up a Primus rivalry with Genocide of all things, which … is kind of neat.

Hrm.

I might have to walk around inside of this thoughtcave for a bit, see where it leads.

[Jazzidemus]

Ok, So the Government begins spin control, purges Primus, Kaufman is expelled, Genocide is a casualty of this, no more Government funds. 

They Find a new "Face" for Primus. However, how transparent can an Organization be? Sure they got caught red handed.  Re-label & relaunch. The Gov't  has put to many resources & funds into it to scrap it. The would move forward & try not to get caught again. Which would mean a lot of the seedier projects would still be there but just buried. With a thicker layer of scape goats & more solid plausible deniability. If Dr D ever found out about that his research was used for the Cyberline Process. Gods help those responsible, unless he knows and it's all part of the long game...

[Tjack]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Does that fact excuse other such acts? Is something not horribly immoral because something else is arguably even more horribly immoral? And if such an act becomes public, should it not be condemned, and its perpetrators held accountable for their actions?

 

 

    Absolutely yes, I only brought these up to show that actions like this were unfortunately not limited to comic book and James Bond villains.   The last sentence was just there to put a final note that inhumanities of this sort happen all too often.

   If my flippant tone offended you then I’m sorry, but it was either try for some kind of dark humor or run screaming into the street.

[Jazzidemus]

14 hours ago, Tjack said:

For a good resource on this stuff I like the movie “The Bourne Legacy” best.  That’s the one that starred Jeremy (Hawkeye) Renner.  It covers the whole how the two different retro viruses would work together thing very well, and seeing the drugs turn him into a modern version of Captain America gives me a special giggle.

   Plus it’s a decent movie on it’s own.

So look at Treadstone, it got outted to the public. The D.O.D. just shrugged and swept it under the rug then introduced BlackBriar. They do this all the time, in Fiction, Comics, & Movies. Like you said they even did this in Captain America. What Hitler has a super soldier we want one, make us one no matter the cost. Luckily Erskine had a moral compass. And once he had control of the project chose a better participant.

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, Tjack said:

Absolutely yes, I only brought these up to show that actions like this were unfortunately not limited to comic book and James Bond villains.   The last sentence was just there to put a final note that inhumanities of this sort happen all too often.

   If my flippant tone offended you then I’m sorry, but it was either try for some kind of dark humor or run screaming into the street.

 

Clarification appreciated. If I was too harshly reactionary I also apologize. Perhaps I'm too testy because increasingly today I see prominent people trying to escape consequences for their reprehensible behavior, by pointing to other people who also behaved reprehensibly, but got away with it.

 

We may yet find each other screaming in the street together.

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Jazzidemus said:

So look at Treadstone, it got outted to the public. The D.O.D. just shrugged and swept it under the rug then introduced BlackBriar. They do this all the time, in Fiction, Comics, & Movies. Like you said they even did this in Captain America. What Hitler has a super soldier we want one, make us one no matter the cost. Luckily Erskine had a moral compass. And once he had control of the project chose a better participant.

 

And that's one reason I love the superhero genre. It regularly features protagonists who don't just accept the ethical swamp surrounding them. They believe in something greater. They hold themselves to a higher standard. They strive with all their might to do what they believe is right, even at great cost to themselves. And they inspire the rest of us to try to be better.

[Tjack]

21 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Clarification appreciated. If I was too harshly reactionary I also apologize. Perhaps I'm too testy because increasingly today I see prominent people trying to escape consequences for their reprehensible behavior, by pointing to other people who also behaved reprehensibly, but got away with it.

 

We may yet find each other screaming in the street together.

 

 

   Cool!!   I’ll be the guy in the blood spattered bunny suit with the equally spattered chainsaw, singing Tom Lehrer songs.

   “Life’s skittles and beer—Now that spring is here—As we poison the pigeons in the park!!!!”

[Duke Bushido]

I don't use Primus, but I have a couple of "secret government enforcer agent" type agencies.  One thing my universe has is lots of low-powered "supers."  They aren't really "super" in the classic comic book way, but they have "powers beyond those of ordinary men."  It just makes sense to me:  in the observable world, it's not a matter of "You're in the NFL or you can't play football at all" or "you're a professional ballerina or you can't dance at all" or anything like that.  Talents, skills, intelligence, and native abilities come in shades and levels.

 

Drawing from what I see, it just makes sense to me that there are low-leveled super powered people, and likely enough of them to make it easy to recruit a few to a political cause.

 

These agencies are essentially doing all their psyche screening specifically on folks who have some ability or other, and are, when possible, selected for a certain "desirable" power set: high defenses, high STR, exceptional movement (running or flight preferred).  The programs are geared toward training-- endless training-- and various chemical stimuli that can be sneakily administered via bits of gear the uniform contains.  Ideally, one or the other or even the combination increases the subjects' power levels.  Further augmentation through armor or exo-suits is afforded to certain kinds of operatives.

 

Operatives are trained according to type:

 

"Standards"  (movement and high defense)

"Shooters"  (ranged attack)

"Sharps" (ranged attack and movement)

"Ferrals" (combat and recon: fighting and enhanced senses: one of the endless Wolverine clones)

 

Training for type is so important that often these "agents" have an additional ability that is flatly ignored: "there are certain things we want, and certain things we don't care about."

 

Key on the selection list is the psyche profile, however, and _none_ of them want mind-readers.  Go figure.  

 

 

[Steve]

While I use PRIMUS, the source of Cyberline is somewhat less Iron Age dark than what was presented in the 4th edition book, or at least I think so.

 

Since I like adding some bits of Marvel and DC into my versions of the Champions Universe, the original source for Cyberline is Steve Rogers (aka Captain America). He was found frozen in the 1960s and brought back to America, but he remained comatose after he was thawed out and revived. He's been receiving regular care in a military hospital ever since, his body remaining in peak condition, seemingly ageless. Blood and tissue samples were taken from his body back in the early 1970s which formed the basis for Cyberline.

 

I hint now and then in my campaigns that someday he will wake up.

[Scott Ruggels]

Man. All this hate for the Iron Age....  

[Lord Liaden]

For my part, I make no apologies for hating the Iron Age. Perhaps it was a necessary phase of genre deconstruction, but it hewed hard away from the idealism, optimism, and moral courage, that endeared me to superhero comic books.

 

But I won't protest anyone with a differing opinion.

[Duke Bushido]

I don't make apologies for it, either.

 

I don't make apologies for hating modern society's apparent _need_ to tear down their heroes.

 

I will offer an explanation for my hate, though:

 

I believe in the value of good people.  I believe there are people who will stand in the face of insult, attack, and denigration because none of these things change the value of doing the right thing.

 

 

[Wakshaani]

Oh, absolutely, the goal here is to purge the darkness and bring Primus back into being a positive agency, out there doing the right thing.

One of the big steps, IMHO, is to bring back the civilian oversite aspect: There'll be a bureaucrat as the top of the agency, with the Golden Avenger being the #1 field agent, in command of the Avengers, but NOT the commander of Primus as a whole. There'll wind up being several department heads:

Avenger program
Field Agents
Science
Undercover ops
Bureaucracy

There may or may not be a slot for the powersuit corps … normally they're under Field Agent, but there's potential to move them to, say, "Incarcerations" and put Stronghold under Primus' overall control, moving the suits to mostly prisoner transport and guard, rather than being a deployable asset for battle. The last slot, bureaucracy, is actualy the majority of people … cooks, janitors, paper-pushers, psychologists, etc, who make the whole org tick.

[Jazzidemus]

On 4/20/2019 at 1:00 PM, Duke Bushido said:

I don't make apologies for it, either.

 

I don't make apologies for hating modern society's apparent _need_ to tear down their heroes.

 

I will offer an explanation for my hate, though:

 

I believe in the value of good people.  I believe there are people who will stand in the face of insult, attack, and denigration because none of these things change the value of doing the right thing.

 

 

I agree, I try and run my Champs in a Silver Age feel. I guess we needed the Iron Age to see why we liked and go back to the Silver Age. 

I read comics to have fun, to read about heroics and a better way, escapism. The Regular World is already dark and gritty. I don't want my comics that way.  That being said did the Iron Age have good stories? Yes they did, it just wasn't my bag. To many pouches, shoulder pads, and spikey bits. 

[Duke Bushido]

38 minutes ago, Jazzidemus said:

To many pouches, shoulder pads, and spikey bits. 

 

 

And brooding.

 

And that one glowing eye.....

[Wakshaani]

I think the pouch rule is similar to the cats rule... you can have up to three. One's fine, need somewhere to store your civilian stuff when heroing … I mean, even *Superman* has a pouch in his cape, you know? Two? You can do two pouches. One for each leg, good for mechanics and the like. Three? Well, that's one at the small of the back and two more but … you've got as much there as a police officer's belt and those things are notoriously blocky and cumbersome.

More than that?

You've gone full Liefeld.

You never go full Liefeld.

[archer]

14 hours ago, Wakshaani said:

I think the pouch rule is similar to the cats rule... you can have up to three. One's fine, need somewhere to store your civilian stuff when heroing … I mean, even *Superman* has a pouch in his cape, you know? Two? You can do two pouches. One for each leg, good for mechanics and the like. Three? Well, that's one at the small of the back and two more but … you've got as much there as a police officer's belt and those things are notoriously blocky and cumbersome.

More than that?

You've gone full Liefeld.

You never go full Liefeld.

 

Umm...I have fifteen cats but no pouches.

 

Maybe I'm doing things wrong?

[drunkonduty]

14 hours ago, Wakshaani said:

I think the pouch rule is similar to the cats rule... you can have up to three. One's fine, need somewhere to store your civilian stuff when heroing … I mean, even *Superman* has a pouch in his cape, you know? Two? You can do two pouches. One for each leg, good for mechanics and the like. Three? Well, that's one at the small of the back and two more but … you've got as much there as a police officer's belt and those things are notoriously blocky and cumbersome.

More than that?

You've gone full Liefeld.

You never go full Liefeld.

 

Health Warning: Excessive use of Liefeld can make your feet disappear.

[Mr. R]

On 4/20/2019 at 10:01 AM, Lord Liaden said:

For my part, I make no apologies for hating the Iron Age. Perhaps it was a necessary phase of genre deconstruction, but it hewed hard away from the idealism, optimism, and moral courage, that endeared me to superhero comic books.

 

But I won't protest anyone with a differing opinion.

 

I seem to recall a quote by the creator of Astro City about the red, white and blue being replaced by a gory red.  We took the watch apart, now the hard part, put it back together and make it work better!

[Jazzidemus]

12 hours ago, Mr. R said:

 We took the watch apart, now the hard part, put it back together and make it work better!

 

(De-constructing Primus...we know what the source material says, but what do you say?) 

What is the goal & purpose of Primus? Peace-keeping? Policing the Metas? An Agency that is used between Police & National Guard? Is it a necessary Agency. Does it exist only because of Metas?

[Wakshaani]

2 hours ago, Jazzidemus said:

 

(De-constructing Primus...we know what the source material says, but what do you say?) 

What is the goal & purpose of Primus? Peace-keeping? Policing the Metas? An Agency that is used between Police & National Guard? Is it a necessary Agency. Does it exist only because of Metas?

To be the government's law enforcement division for Supercrime and, to a lesser extent, the oversight body for superheroes. In addition to taking care of supercrime, and incarcerating/transporting supervillains, they also handle papaerwork, serve as government liasons with hero teams, and so on. Probably have a research arm into super powers as well.

More over, they're for the US government, not for an international body like UNTIL. The US tends to be a tad … distrustful … of giving up any degree of sovereignty to international organizations.

[Lord Liaden]

PRIMUS also conducts the legally-mandated registration of all superhumans active in American territory -- true identities, powers, supertech, and the like -- and maintains the secure database of this information.

 

It's worth remembering that PRIMUS as originally conceived for 3E Champions (in the PRIMUS and DEMON oganization book) was a unified military service, but the current official one is a division of the US Department of Justice, hence focused on domestic law-enforcement, specifically federal "supercrime" as the FBI deals with more conventional crime (although those spheres often overlap). Returning PRIMUS to that earlier conception, i.e. putting it under the Department of Defense, would open the door to more international missions, confronting superhuman threats to American interests anywhere in the world. Which would probably also result in more head-butting with the likes of UNTIL and foreign governments.

 

However, in the current official CU the Department of Superhuman and Paranormal Affairs (DOSPA) has final authority regarding all superhuman activity affecting the United States, as well as oversight of all US government superhuman assets, regardless of which branch of government directly employs them. In some circumstances DOSPA could coordinate joint operations between PRIMUS and other government branches, particularly their respective supers.

[Wakshaani]

Oh, it stays in Justice (or Homeland Security) for certain. It doesn't need to be an official "strike force"... it's the Super FBI, in essence.

(but SAT, the Super American tactics? That effectively dead org I rebuilt as, in effect, GI Joe. THAT'S the international terrorist-fighting arm of the US military. Gives each organization a reason to exist.)

But Primus as a group where heroes can buy supertech (like costumes that don't burst into flames when you use your powers) or get staff to work in their HQ? Yeah, the administrative side has some real strength. Civillian oversight of the Avenger program, instead of Golden Avenger = The Boss... that's a key factor, I think.